E06551: Aldhelm, in his prose On Virginity, names *Clement (bishop of Rome, martyr of the Crimea, S00111) as an exemplary virgin. Written in Latin in southern Britain, for the nuns at the monastery at Barking (south-east Britain), c. 675/686.

Aldhelm, prose On Virginity, 25

Clemens, caelestis clavicularii primus successor et secundus Romanae ecclesiae dispensator, quamquam nonnulli Linum et Ancletum in pontificatus regmine nequiquam praeferant, quod caelibatus castimoniam, etiam antequam salutifero lavacri baptisterio mersus ab originali piaculo purgaretur, medullitus dilexerit, ipse propriis litterarum apicibus propalat dicens: Ego Clemens in urbe Roma natus a prima aetate pudicitiae studium gessi [...]

'CLEMENT, the first successor of the celestial key-bearer [i.e. St Peter] and the second steward of the Roman Church – although some people, without any grounds, place Linus and Ancletus before him in the government of the papacy – makes manifest in the very writing of his own letters that he profoundly loved the chastity of the celibate life even before he was purged of original sin (by being) immersed in the redeeming baptistry of the font, by saying, "I Clement, born in the city of Rome, pursued the study of chastity from my earliest infancy" [...]'

Text: Ehwald 1919, 257. Translation: Lapidge and Herren 1979, 82.